Roubini: 'Sleeper cell' behind Boston attack

4/16/13 7:06 PM EDT

Nouriel Roubini, the rock-star economist who is credited with predicting the collapse of the U.S. housing market, believes he knows who is responsible for Monday's attack at the Boston Marathon.

"So it looks like 1 of the sleeper cells on the Eastern Seaboard woke up. & since the NYC Marathon was cancelled they went for the Boston one," he tweeted on Monday night, more than seven hours after the explosions. When asked by a follower how he knew, Roubini cited "informed sources."

POLITICO sent multiple emails to Roubini over the last 18 hours requesting comment or more information. We also spoke with Roubini's assistant, who said she would relay the inquiry to him. He has yet to respond.

Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics and a professor at New York University, spends the majority of his time traveling to the world's financial capitals and meeting with other influential economists and finance ministers. (He is currently in Washington, D.C., for the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund.) But he's had his hits and misses in the prediction game. He correctly predicted in 2005 that reckless speculation on home prices would sink the U.S. economy (earning himself the moniker "Dr. Doom"), but also that Greece would leave the eurozone in 2012 and 2013 (though, arguably, that could still come to pass).

Of course, economic predictions and intelligence claims are two different things. But once again, history will prove Roubini right or wrong.